PAGE
No. I. IOANNES CNOXVS.
_From_ THEOD. BEZAE ICONES, etc.,
M.D.LXXX. xii
No. II. HANDWRITTEN PREFACE _facing page_ xxxi
No. VII. SIGNATURE OF M JO. KNOX. xxxiv
augusti 18 a^o 1581
$ADVERTISEMENT$.
This publication of the Works of JOHN KNOX, it is supposed, will extend
to Five Volumes. It was thought advisable to commence the series with
his History of the Reformation in Scotland, as the work of greatest
importance. The next volume will thus contain the Third and Fourth
Books, which continue the History to the year 1564; at which period his
historical labours may be considered to terminate. But the Fifth Book,
forming a sequel to the History, and published under his name in 1644,
will also be included. His Letters and Miscellaneous Writings will be
arranged in the subsequent volumes, as nearly as possible in
chronological order; each portion being introduced by a separate notice,
respecting the manuscript or printed copies from which they have been
taken.
It may perhaps be expected that a Life of the Author should have been
prefixed to this volume. The Life of Knox, by DR. M'CRIE, is however a
work so universally known, and of so much historical value, as to
supersede any attempt that might be made for a detailed biography; and
none of the earlier sketches of his life is sufficiently minute or
accurate to answer the purpose intended. In order to obviate the
necessity of the reader having recourse to other authorities, I have
added some chronological notices of the leading events in his life;
reserving to the conclusion of the work any remarks, in connexion with
this publication, that may seem to be requisite.
I was very desirous of obtaining a Portrait of the Reformer, to
accompany this volume. Hitherto all my inquiries have failed to discover
any undoubted original painting, among several which have either been so
described, or engraved as such.[1] In the meantime, a tolerably accurate
fac-simile is given of the wood-cut portrait of Knox,[2] included by
Theodore Beza, in his volume entitled "ICONES, _id est_, Verae Imagines
Virorum Doctrina simul et Pietate illustrium," &c., published at Geneva,
in the year 1580, 4to. It is the earliest of the engraved portraits,
and, so far a
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